flung him back
upon the use of the old, almost forgotten name.

No marriage, honestly entered into, honestly lived out, could be a
machine-wrought manacle. If it seemed one, then the greater shame to
those who wore it, the greater shame to him, the husband, that his more
crass nature could throw doubt upon the fineness of the texture of the
bond. Besides, Kathryn was his wife, his lawful, loyal, albeit
sometimes uncomprehending, wife. That fact alone was quite sufficient.
Beyond it, there was no need to probe. Kathryn and he were one; the
sacred seal of joint parentage was soon to be placed upon their union,
rendering it more permanent, more holy. If they had their trivial
disagreements, what then? It was the place of him, the stronger, the
steadier, to end them for all time. Even while they lasted, he was a
priest and bound to patient service, not a fiction-monger, like little
Prather, nosing about in every situation that arose, with the faint
hope of picking up an occasional crumb of melodramatic copy. He was a
priest, a man not so much of words as of holy life. And the way to
priestly holiness did not lie along the hummocks of domestic squabbles.

Brenton lifted his head, shut his teeth a little sidewise, straightened
his shoulders, and went in search of Kathryn.

But Kathryn, going off to bed, had locked her door behind her. However,
had the priestly eye been properly applied to the keyhole, it would
have made out the reassuring fact that Kathryn, sleeping, showed the
unruffled countenance of a contented babe.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

In the fulness of time, the Brenton baby came, a sturdy little
youngster who, from the start, kicked lustily and lifted up his voice
out of a pair of brazen lungs that made the domestic welkin ring.
Kathryn, somewhat weak and very languid, opened her eyes listlessly,
when the nurse approached the bed, the new-born heir, swaddled and
shrieking, in her capable arms.

"Here's the baby, Mrs. Brenton!" she announced, and there was as much
triumph in her tone as if it were the first child of her forty years'
experience in nursing, not the last.

"Thank you, nurse. I'm sure she's very nice. And will you please tell
Mr. Brenton," for Scott still was rigidly barred out from the room;
"that I think we'll name her Katharine--"

"But, ma'am--"

Imperious in spite of her weakness, Kathryn ignored the attempted
interruption.

"--Katharine, for me and for my grandmother."

"But, Mrs